He blocked her with a single smooth move. "It's a natural gift."
"Today is not the time to mess with me." She wasn't going to fall into the trap Lijuan had designed, wasn't going to see Raphael as a monster, but . . . each time he did something that pushed the boundaries, it slapped her in the face with her new reality. A reality in which archangels played with immortal and mortal lives as if they were nothing but the most disposable of chess pieces.
Venom smiled, and it was a sight that would've sent many women to their knees, full of an erotic promise that said he'd make even death feel good. "I've been trying to figure out what he sees in you."
Elena swiped out with a knife in her right hand, missing his arm by the barest fraction of a hair. His dodge was impossibly fast. When Venom moved, it reminded her only of the creature Neha had chosen as her avatar - as if he'd never been human. But today, even that wasn't enough to compel her curiosity. She kept on walking.
The vampire appeared beside her again a moment later. "Dmitri now," he murmured, "I can see why he'd want to play with you. He's into knives and pain."
"And you're not?" She remembered all too clearly that scene in the garage - Venom prowling with silky grace toward a woman stunned to silence by his dangerous brand of sex. There'd been male appreciation in his expression . . . but there'd also been the primordial hunger of the much colder creature that marked his eyes. "You're the one who secretes poison."
"So do you."
She halted, blinked, braced herself with her hands on her knees. "Shit." How could she have let that go? Not asked Raphael about the consequences of becoming an angel?
A coolly honest part of her answered with a single word.
Fear.
She was scared. Scared to accept the irreversible truth of her new life. Scared to know that she might one day look into eyes as worshipful as Geraldine's, and understand too late that she was creating a victim. Prey for the immortals circling like sharks.
Feeling her cheeks flare with a hot-cold burn, she said, "When?"
Venom gave her a slow smile. "When it's time."
"You know," she said, rising back to a standing position in spite of the sudden churning in her gut, "inscrutable doesn't work when you're smirking."
Venom's reply was abrogated by a tinny little beep. Holding up a finger, he took out a slick black cell phone, reading something on the screen. "What a pity, there's no more time to chat. You have to get ready for a meeting."
Elena didn't bother to ask who the meeting was with - the vampire would just take the chance to jerk her chain. Instead, she made quick work of the remaining distance to the stronghold, slammed the door to the private wing in Venom's face, and stripped, trying not to think about the box she'd touched, what lay beneath the macabre carvings.
There was a knock on the main door fifteen minutes later. Having rushed through a shower, Elena opened it to find an old vampire with eyes that twinkled. He had a measuring tape around his neck and pins in his pocket. His assistant carried tailor's chalk and what appeared to be a case containing a thousand swatches of material.
She was, it seemed, getting measured for clothing suitable for Lijuan's ball.
All of it in shades of blue.
Raphael returned from his meeting with Elijah and Michaela to discover Jason waiting for him. The black-winged angel kept his silence until they were in Raphael's office.
"Maya's uncovered something disturbing about Dahariel." He handed over a file.
Opening it, Raphael found himself faced with the photographic image of a young male who'd only just crossed the threshold that separated man from boy. "Mortal?"
"No." Jason gripped the wrist of one hand with the other, the hold so tight, Raphael saw the blood flow stop to his hand. "He was Made half a millennium ago."
Before the Cadre decreed that no mortal below the age of twenty-five could be Made without lethal consequences for the Maker. Mortals today would judge the Making of this boy a crime, but five hundred years ago, humans had lived much shorter lives. At this age, the boy might've been a father already, would almost certainly have been expected to earn his own way in the world.
"He signed on to serve Dahariel for five decades, three years ago," Jason said, that grip ever tighter.
Raphael closed the file. "What is it you're not telling me, Jason?"
"The boy hasn't been seen for the past year."
Raphael felt a dark wave of anger. The Made were at the mercy of their Makers, and after the expiration of their original Contract, if they couldn't care for themselves - at the mercy of those to whom they chose to give their loyalty. Too many chose wrong.
"Murder isn't a crime if a vampire is under contract." An inhuman law - but vampires weren't human. In many cases, they were predators barely leashed. But angels were predators, too. And this boy had delivered himself into the hands of one.
"The boy isn't dead," Jason said, to his surprise. "It appears that Dahariel is keeping him in a private cage for his . . . entertainment." The toneless way that word came out told Raphael more about Dahariel's idea of entertainment than anything else. "And because he signed on to serve Dahariel of his own free will, no one can do anything to help him."
"What did Dahariel promise in return for this vampire's allegiance?" Murder wasn't a crime, but therewere certain unwritten laws that had to be followed, laws that kept the structure of the world from imploding on itself. One such law required that all service contracts be honored - on both sides.
"Protection against other angels." Jason's laugh was utterly without humor. "It seems the boy is still weak after all these years of existence. He's survived this long only by tying himself to those stronger than him."